Crafts, Needles, and Antsy Minds

February has been long, cold, and dull.  I can not wait for March, and traveling, and warmer weather.  I have gotten a lot accomplished this month however.  I owe most of this to being stuck inside due to the cold and crappy weather, and to feeling crazy antsy for spring and traveling and life to start up again.  I feel like I am stuck in this place and I need to get away and breathe.  The tattoo is complete, and friends are far away and very busy.  I am tired of Seoul and of Daegu and very ready to get out and do some crazy stuff.  March is my month of travel.  Next weekend I am heading to Seoraksan for three days of hiking and I will hopefully survive it.  Day two is a 10 mile hike that will take about eleven hours to complete.  I just don't want to die on that hike.  The second weekend is a trip to a cave, and the weekend after that I head to an overnight temple stay.  I feel a bit bad about leaving Dash all alone on the weekend, but the cave trip is only a day and the temple stay is and overnight.  And we hang out all week.

So, the tattoo.  After about 10 hours of tattooing and needles stabbing me and every muscle in my body being tense, I survived and it is complete.  I am in love with it.  Completely and totally in love with it.  Here are the three steps of the tattoo.

I have also been crafting up a storm, both in my apartment and with actual art.  I bought a new sketch book and pencils and I started up drawing again.  I will say straight up that my drawing skills have diminished greatly over the years of not using them.  I need a lot of practice to get back to where I was in college, and even then, I didn't have any super talent.  I am also going to buy some paints and take up painting a little again.  I am really loving how I feel when I am doing art and I forgot how much I loved it.  It helps me feel so much more relaxed and calm.  Browsing facebook the other day, I found a guy who was selling some cameras for decent prices.  I ended up buying three of them.  This may seem crazy, but the cost of all three equaled the cost of buying one of them new, so I think it was money well spent.  They take film and are cute and little and I love them.  They will be super fun this summer on my trips and just exploring the city I live in.  Two of them are Lomographic cameras, and while I haven't tried this type of camera before, I think they will provide an interesting and different way to record my time here.  And the third camera is a giant polaroid camera, also great for preserving memories.

My inner artsy person is coming to the surface in more then pure art forms.  I am also getting very crafty in my apartment with the decorations and other things I need but can't afford at the moment.  My apartment had lots of white wall space and blank walls and buying art here is not easy.  I needed to find something I could hang on the walls without putting any holes in them.  I was at my favorite resale shop the other day and I was digging through the box of scarves they have in a corner.  In this wonderful box I pulled out a plethora of fancy scarves with different uses and designs.  I found three with a large single picture on them and they look great up on the wall.  I repurposed some old wine, beer, and salad dressing bottles to use as candle holders.  The wine bottles I left the way they were and I am hoping that the wax will drip down them and create cool looks.  I covered the dressing bottle in decorative craft tape.  I couldn't get the label off of it and I really only liked the octagonal shape of the bottle anyway.  The varied sizes, shapes, and colors combined with different candle sizes really make for interesting decorations.    I also finished up my photo wall and prettied it up by covering the hooks in fake flowers. 

Can't wait for next weekend and all the crazy hiking I am going to do.  I am just hoping that I can make it through all the hiking without dying.  Tomorrow I have to get up early and buy some hiking boots and a new backpack for hiking so I can bring my camera without being afraid that it will break of slip.  It is going to be a bit expensive, but it is something I need and that I will use a lot in the future this summer.  I will put up pictures and a story of the hike once I get back.  I think I should go run around the apartment building a few times so I can prep for the hike.  not that four days is really much time to do a lot of difference.  I just keep repeating, "I can do this I can do this I can do this...."  and when the big hike comes, I will do it.  Cheers for now!

Graffiti Walk

I have become very interested in graffiti while here in korea.  Maybe it is because even the plain writing looks like art to me, or maybe it is because it is an interesting contrast to the rundown, traditional buildings it appears on.  Whatever the reason my brain is finding it interesting, I have begun to search it out.  One of the best places I have found to locate good graffiti here downtown on all the tiny little side streets and alleyways.  There are several pieces I have gone back to see multiple times and one or two pieces I have watched created over the weeks.  Last weekend I went shopping for some inspiration for apartment decorating and crafty feelings and I spent a few hours wandering around, taking pictures of some of the ones I like the most.

Wall across from one of my favorite resale shops.  The wings are neat-o.

Music Notes

Pretty nifty eye, the drips really add to it

A cool stencil graffiti

Love the name

What I have dubbed the Korean Joker Wall.  I love the shadow painted to the left.

Close up of the joker wall

My Favorite Wall: Hidden behind a little coffee shop

Detail of my favorite wall

Love the three overlapping faces here

In progress, can't wait to see it completed

Love the Old woman and the young girl surrounded by brand names.  It translates to "you" and "your mom"

Foody Foodie Food

I have been working hard to cook more in the last week.  Most of the food I make is made by opening the fridge and figuring out how I can creatively throw things together in a tasty and interesting way.  Or on what in the easiest way to cook something fast.  I decided to write down some basics that I made this week.  These are not recipes, just basic ingredients and how I tossed them into something edible.  Lets start with breakfast.

Oatmeal with fresh strawberries and "Brock Wurst"

Pretty basic.  Boxed oatmeal with a little maple syrup (bought for $25) and butter and some fresh, cut strawberries thrown on top.  Served with what I would call a basic sausage.  The package says "brock wurst" which leads me to think it is an attempt at a bratwurst.  With seasoning added, and crisping up in a pan, they aren't awful and are pretty quick to cook up. 

 Well-Balanced Breakfast

Again, not to special.  Powdered coffee, Orange Juice, Special K, Mandarin Orange, and Scrambled Quail Eggs.  Yep, quail eggs.  I didn't use them in an attempt to be fancy.  I swear.  I had the option of buying 20 quail eggs or 24 full-sized eggs.  I can't eat 24 full-sized eggs before they go bad, so I bought the tiny quail eggs.  They cost the same.   I added some green onions and pepper to the eggs.

 Garlic Potatoes and Steak with Guacamole 

I found some avocados and the local store and bought them (even thought they were a whopping $6 each)  I attempted to make guacamole but I was unable to locate several key ingredients  such as limes or fresh cilantro, so it wasn't amazing, but it wasn't terrible either.  When I put it on top of the steak I bought on super sale the day it "expired" it made the steak and the guacamole so much better.  The garlic potatoes were just as yummy as always, though the butter was a bit odd so the flavor was a little different then I was used to.  But, I pulled of a basic american staple, and cured a little home-missing blues I was feeling that night.

Spicy Mushroom and Beef Burger with Raw Onion, Garlic and Caramelized Onion Potatoes, and Fresh Strawberries 

I found some ground beef on sale, almost expired, and decided to make a wonderful burger.  A good burger is something I have been missing while here in korea.  I chopped up some mushrooms and mixed them into the ground beef and added some spices and salt.  Then I tossed it in a pan with some onions and let it cook nice and slow all the way through.  I added a little red wine to the pan to give the burger and onions a little more flavor.  Once the onions had caramelized I added them to the garlic potatoes I had cooked up.  A slice of raw onion on top of the burger and some fresh strawberries on the side and the meal was pretty damn good if I say so myself.

 Wine and Onion Pork

This was pretty basic.  I put the pork in a plastic bag with some store bought marinade and some wine and then went to work.  When I got home, I threw it in a pan with some onions and more wine and marinade.  I put a lid on the pot and added some water to help the pork stay juicy and moist while it cooked on very low heat.  After about an hour on the stove, I took the pork out and added a little flour to the leftover cooking juices and onions and viola! Wine and onion pork.

Sundae Guk -- Carly Style

 About a year ago, my old job ordered this soup.  It is made with Sundae, or korean blood sausage.  I wanted it again really badly, but I don't trust my korean language skills to order it at a restaurant.  So I decided to try to make it up myself.  Oddly when I looked online for a recipe, I couldn't find one.  So I decided to wing it.  I knew the basic ingredients, the problem was the broth.  The only directions I could find about it was that it was made by boiling pork bones.  I could find pork bone at the local mart so I looked through the pre-made soups they sell.  I found a powdered mixture for a thick beef soup and a pre-made beef knuckle soup.  beef knuckles are not something many people like.  they are many cartilage and cook up to a slimy-chewy texture.  I happen to love it but I don't recommend it to careful eaters.  I mixed the two, added water and green onions and the sundae and let it boil for awhile.  Once the sausage was cooked, I tried it out.  It wasn't as good as the restaurant stuff, but it was still pretty tasty!

Chicken Soup done Korean Style -- By Carly

 Now, this isn't really korean-style chicken soup.  It is my own combination of my chicken soup recipe and a few very korean ingredients. The white disk shapes you can see are Tteok, the most familiar use of this would be Tteokbokki.  I have developed I deep love of this in my Mandu Guk at work each week.  I decided to add it to the chicken soup in place of noodles.  I also substituted Garlic tops for onions.  I think it was great.  Simple and fast and pretty cheap as well.  just add some broccoli, celery, and chicken breast and you are good to go.

Soy and Wine Beef with Quail Eggs and Veggie Curry

I bought some sale/expired beef again and a packet of soy boiled beef.  I threw it all in a pan with some red wine, garlic, green onions, and water and left it to boil until the beef was cooked through and tender.  While it was cooking, I cut up some potatoes very small and put them in a pan with some green onions, olive oil, spicy curry powder, and water.  I slowly added some finely chopped broccoli and zucchini as well as more curry and water. I put a lid on the pan and let it boil together and let the curry powder release all its flavor.  When the beef was done, I took it out of the pan and cooked a few quail eggs in the juices left in the pan then added them to the beef.  When the food was all done I mixed it together and enjoyed the awesomeness that is my cooking skills.

I am slowly getting around the confusion and fear of new foods here.  my new approach has been to just buy it if it looks good and then play with different cooking methods and combinations until I find the best combo.  I have also been very thrifty about buying the meat that is older and on sale.  If I buy beef the day it expires, I can get it for as much as 50% off the original price.  This may seem risky to some people, but I do look at it very carefully before I buy it and when I get it home and open it, I pay attention to the smell and fell of it.  If I feel at all unsure of the safety of eating it, I don't.  So far I haven't gotten sick.  All this food talk and typing has made me starving so I am going to heat up some of that curry and beef, have a glass of wine, and then head downtown for this art and music show I heard about.  Check back to a post about graffiti and another about the super cool stuff I have been adding to my apartment to make it more homey and more me.

UMMMMMM!!!!